Being a fan of buildings I would like to add another comment.
Firstly, some older buildings were built to be functional, like a tudor house, or a castle, but today we see them as beautiful, maybe because of their age, but at the time were not built to be beautiful.
During the Victorian period many fine buildings were built, but this was mainly because many British towns were competing with each other to have the best town hall or other civic buiding.
Labour was cheap, and many of these towns were rich, so they could spend a lot of money, and employ a lot of staff, to build a fine town hall, like at say Manchester
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ewm/ic3/33.j pg
After the second world war (50s 60s 70s) there was a rush to rebuild our bombed out cities so many buildings were put up quickly, often built with pre built concrete slabs which weathered badly and now look awful.
Many of these awful buildings still stand in some city centres, and they just make the nice buidlings nearby look even better.
Recently there has been an attempt to make some building look "different" (often for the sake of it) and of course anything "new" will have its fans as well as its critics.
Of course, with anything new, some work and some dont. I happen to hate the Selfidges building, others love it.
And finally, note that when the Eiffel Tower was first built in Paris many of the locals hated it and could not wait for it to be pulled down.
I bet if they tried to pull it down now there would be a worldwide outcry.
So people's attitudes to buildings can change over time.